An Illustrated Guide to Mendacity and Folly in the Imperium Americanum

What can we say? Sarah Palin’s life would fill two week’s worth of the Jerry Springer Show. This week’s National Enquirer–remember, they knew about John Edwards’ affair eight months before the NYTimes knew–alleges that Sary darlin’ had an affair ten years ago (at least that’s the scuttlebutt in the Wasilla gossip chain), that the reason young Track is in the army was because he’d lost control of his various drug addictions, and to round things off, provides juicy details about what happened in the Palin household when little Miss Bristol announced she got knocked up by the boyfriend she’s constantly fighting and breaking up with. Oughta be a great marriage.

But we finally get Sarah’s first interview with Charlie Gibson. HOOHAH! Let’s go to war with Russia! From what I could see, Charlie Gibson was leaning over backwards in an effort to not let Sarah make a total fool of herself. But there are just some things you can’t get around. Like, she knows nothing about the world outside the US, nothing about foreign policy in general, nothing about the foreign policies of her hero, Dubya. What’s a Bush Doctrine? She’s not completely certain that the war in Iraq is part of God’s plan, but she sure knows that gas pipeline from Alaska is. After all, National Security is equivalent to Energy Policy, isn’t it? I’d say her handlers need to intensify efforts to bring her up to speed before the next interview.

But the interesting thing is looking at the comments to the various clips floating around–on mainstream sites like Yahoo. You’d think Charlie Gibson was a foaming at the mouth radical the way some of these comments castigated him for asking Sarah questions that were TOO HARD. Too Hard? Playing Gotcha? It seems as if there’s a segment of the population that WANTS a “hockey mom” as Vice President, someone just like them, someone with the same problems and the same outlook. It isn’t fair to expect her to have the kind of knowledge a seasoned politician would have. Well, nuts! If this hockey mom is going to be next in line for the presidency, I want her to have the kind of knowledge a seasoned politician would have–because she needs it. It’s not like we get a do-over if we declare war on Russia over a petty border squabble–

Being president is the ultimate occupation you learn “on the job” since no other office prepares you for the decisions you have to make. But let’s have someone who’s at least got the fundamentals, rather than the fundamentalists.

NOTE: Due to some needed downtime to revise part of the site, I’m going to leave this cartoon up until this Friday — and also to give it time to move a bit on the web.